How long was it between your engagement & wedding?

[GoldieSaysMeep]

Just curious...

Fiance & I just got engaged and we want a nice wedding.

We will have no parental assistance whatsoever as we are in our 30's. I'm 33 & he's 35. Is it really that weird to wait 4 years between engagement and wedding?

He & I would rather wait and have the wedding we actually want but everyone seems to think we're crazy.

~~~~more info~~~

This is his first wedding but my second. I was married for less than a month (had it annulled) when I was 22. My parents are quite well off and they threw a gala for that, even though I begged them not to and told them I didn't want to go through with it as it got closer etc. They told me "everything is paid, all our friends are coming, you're showing up".

So I did. And I left a month later after my ex hit me.

Anyway, Because of that, my parents are treating the entire engagement now as a joke and pretty much instead of "congrats!" their first reaction to being told we were engaged was "we're not paying for anything" (nice, huh? I'd probably congrats my kid but thats just me ) Making snarky comments about how long this will last etc.

Why would you do this to your child? The funny thing is, they love my fiance. They just don't think I am going to stay with him because of what happened over 10 years ago... Because, you know, obviously people don't change & grow up in 10 years?

I'll stress that I don't expect parental help. I just find it annoying that that was their first response to the happiest event of my life.

Because of the debacle 10 years ago, I want to start over and have a nice, classy looking wedding. My fiance deserves that, I want to give him that, and we really don't want a cheap looking VFW where we'll have to clean up after the reception and no, we'd never ask my friends to clean up. The last 3 weddings I went to at VFW halls were really awkward. One of them, the place hadn't even been cleaned before the reception. Another one had veterans stuff everywhere because no one had a chane to clear the room...

So to get a nice location, I'm willing to cut out: limos, dj, pro photographer , open bar, nice dress ( I will get something cheap, probably not even labeled a wedding gown), and will do the wedding on a Sunday (weeknights are too hard).

I will make the favors and invites myself. I might try to make the centerpieces myself.

We are not religious and not getting married at church. His mom is friends with a JP so I'm not worried about that. We'll probably do ceremony & reception at the same place.

But even after all of this, to rent a classy looking reception site and ceremony location and have it catered with a minimal buffet, we are looking at close to 10K. So we can either "take a loan" which I refuse to do or "wait 4-5 years" (we were assumed we'd have to wait 2 to 3 anyway).

I'm not talking about renting a historic site, mansion, or museum... I'm talking about even a ballroom at a hotel or function center.

Anything other than a cheap hall is upwards of 3K for 5 hours, then you add in catering, cake and staff... ugh.

I'm deathly allergic to bees so anything outside is a no no. People keep telling me to have a cheaper ceremony outside but I think getting stung would kinda wreck the day...

 

[golfgal]

Our wedding was 14 months after we got engaged, mostly because that is when we could get the church, hall and photographer all on the same day. Yes, I think at your age waiting 4 years after your engagement is weird but what does it really matter. Get a second job, both of you, save up for the wedding you want and get married. We paid for 100% of our wedding and had the wedding we wanted but we were only 25 at the time.

 

[dawson5]

engaged at 19, married at 24. I started dating him when I was 16. We're going on 17 yrs married.

My sister in law (#2) rented a beautiful place for the ceremony and it was not typical. I don't know what they paid (her parents actually). We were married by JoP, my other sister in law (#1) also.

As for the bees, what about later in the year. DSiL #2 was married in late October and I don't remember bugs, bees, flies, anything like that.

Bummer about the parents. That type of attitude is why my mother married 4 times. You can't change them, just learn to deal

 

[Golf4food]

1 year, but we were both still in college - wedding was after I graduated.

 

[meandmytwogirls]

Two years after we both finished college. We had a small simple wedding since we we're buying a house so the parents gave us house cash vs. throwing a big wedding.

 

[2binak]

It took us 2 years to get married after getting engaged. We lived in one state, my family in another and DH's in yet another. My family had convinced me to have a wedding in my hometown, but I was never thrilled with the idea so subconciously, I was stalling on choosing locations and vendors. About 6 months later, DH and I moved to another state and I realized that I really didn't want the hometown wedding my family wanted me to have, but that I wanted a wedding where I was now living, so the planning started all over again. It was soooo worth the wait to have the wedding of my dreams. DH and I paid for our own wedding too and it was nice to have control over the planning and details.

We paid $8k for everything - invites, favors, dress, tux, restaurant (with outdoor ceremony, but indoor was an option), DJ, photog, flowers & WDW honeymoon. We didn't have a limo or centerpieces (the restaurant already had some), we had silk flowers and the cake was made by a family member who is a professional baker.

Good luck!

 

[AKL_Megs]

We were engaged on 1/4/06 and married on 6/26/09, so...

Just about 3.5 years.

We waited only because, at the time, DH was finishing up at the Police Academy, and then we wanted to make sure he was with a department before we got married. Then we had to wait for him to accure some vacation time. THEN, we had to wait again because I was in the process of becomming a flight attendant, and we had to wait for ME to accure some vacation time. We waited again, since we wanted a summer wedding.

We had a small outdoor wedding of 30 people last month. It was beautiful and worth the wait.

 

[MariDisney]

For my 1st wedding, we were engaged 11 months. We were both 25, but paid for it all ourselves. We had a pretty nice event with a beautiful reception, etc. It was close to my dream wedding and cost us about 15K in 1994. The marriage lasted until 2001.

With my (now and forever) DH, things worked out in an odd way. My ex's lawyer was completely incompetent and filed wrong papers over and over. SO, even though we initially filed in 2/02 the divorce didn't finish until 3/04. My DH gave me a ring in 12/02 even though I was still legally married to someone else. Of course, we didn't actually start planning a wedding. My divorce came through on 3/17/04 and we got married 5/21/04. So we planned the wedding in 8 weeks. It was wonderful. I bought a $16 beautiful formal length suit from Ross!! We had it catered with heavy appetizers and cake in our church hall. My sister wore a pretty dress and his brother wore a suit. Nothing matchy matchy. All told, our wedding was less than $1500. We were surrounded by the people who love us (about 75 people) and had the time of our lives. My point in all this, is that I learned that the event itself and the amount spent, etc. isn't really what matters. I wouldn't trade our wedding for anything.

So, if you want to wait 4 years, do it. But, in the long run, you want to be with your man. I wouldn't wait if I didn't have to. Good luck!

 

[MomNeedsVacay]

YEs, I think 3-4 years is a long time to wait b/t an engagement and marriage. To me, it says that you don't want to be married as much as have a fancy party. That being said, my parents paid for my wedding, so I really shouldn't judge

My friend Maria had a VERY classy wedding reception that she paid for herself. All under $5,000... it took a lot of hard work and close friends and family helped out too, but it was very nice....
Location: Her condo's fancy "community room" ( sounds ugly, but it was very nice...included tables, tablecloths, couches, chairs etc...)

Style: heavy hors d'oerves (passed by youth group kids that she taught dressed in all black) and some were sitting on a table on fancy borrowed trays... She bought a lot of these from Costco and made some herself

Bar: open beer and wine and soda... Her brother in law played bartender
and she got all the beer and wine from Costco

DJ: Me... the location had a sound system, so basically I plugged in my ipod and I had downloaded jazz and some other favorite tunes plus her wedding song

Her friend did all flowers and centerpieces as a wedding present and her brother took pics!!
It was really beautiful and 1/10 of what a lot of weddings cost here in the DC area!!
Good Luck!

 

[LoraJ]

13 months.

When I was on the knot during that time planning our wedding, there were people on there who had started dating, got engaged and married within that time frame. I never understood what the rush was. I enjoyed the engagement period.

On the other hand, I know people who got engaged around the same time we did and they still are not married. We got engaged 3 years ago. They are trying to save up for a big huge wedding.

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

18 months...

 

[lil mermaid]

Just curious...

Fiance & I just got engaged and we want a nice wedding.

We will have no parental assistance whatsoever as we are in our 30's. I'm 33 & he's 35. Is it really that weird to wait 4 years between engagement and wedding?

He & I would rather wait and have the wedding we actually want but everyone seems to think we're crazy.

~~~~more info~~~

This is his first wedding but my second. I was married for less than a month (had it annulled) when I was 22. My parents are quite well off and they threw a gala for that, even though I begged them not to and told them I didn't want to go through with it as it got closer etc. They told me "everything is paid, all our friends are coming, you're showing up".

So I did. And I left a month later after my ex hit me.

Anyway, Because of that, my parents are treating the entire engagement now as a joke and pretty much instead of "congrats!" their first reaction to being told we were engaged was "we're not paying for anything" (nice, huh? I'd probably congrats my kid but thats just me ) Making snarky comments about how long this will last etc.

Why would you do this to your child? The funny thing is, they love my fiance. They just don't think I am going to stay with him because of what happened over 10 years ago... Because, you know, obviously people don't change & grow up in 10 years?

I'll stress that I don't expect parental help. I just find it annoying that that was their first response to the happiest event of my life.

Because of the debacle 10 years ago, I want to start over and have a nice, classy looking wedding. My fiance deserves that, I want to give him that, and we really don't want a cheap looking VFW where we'll have to clean up after the reception and no, we'd never ask my friends to clean up. The last 3 weddings I went to at VFW halls were really awkward. One of them, the place hadn't even been cleaned before the reception. Another one had veterans stuff everywhere because no one had a chane to clear the room...

So to get a nice location, I'm willing to cut out: limos, dj, pro photographer , open bar, nice dress ( I will get something cheap, probably not even labeled a wedding gown), and will do the wedding on a Sunday (weeknights are too hard).

I will make the favors and invites myself. I might try to make the centerpieces myself.

We are not religious and not getting married at church. His mom is friends with a JP so I'm not worried about that. We'll probably do ceremony & reception at the same place.

But even after all of this, to rent a classy looking reception site and ceremony location and have it catered with a minimal buffet, we are looking at close to 10K. So we can either "take a loan" which I refuse to do or "wait 4-5 years" (we were assumed we'd have to wait 2 to 3 anyway).

I'm not talking about renting a historic site, mansion, or museum... I'm talking about even a ballroom at a hotel or function center.

Anything other than a cheap hall is upwards of 3K for 5 hours, then you add in catering, cake and staff... ugh.

I'm deathly allergic to bees so anything outside is a no no. People keep telling me to have a cheaper ceremony outside but I think getting stung would kinda wreck the day...

We were engaged one year before we got married. We would have married sooner, but at the time DH was in the merchant marine and was shipping out for three months at a time. We had to plan our wedding for when he was on vacation, so that took some finagling. It was my second wedding, and his first. We had a small wedding at WDW with just immediate family.

You asked, so I am answering - yes I think that at your age, a four year engagement is a bit weird. It sounds as if you are more concerned about the "wedding" than the actual marriage.

Also, it sort of seems that you might be afraid deep down inside to get married again, and are purposely dragging things out. With your history, I don't blame you for that.

Sorry your Mom is so difficult, BTW.

 

[barkley]

time between engagement and wedding-9 months.

we were in our's 20's (dh was 23, i was a couple months shy of 30), first marriages for both of us-no financial assistance from anyone.

we had a very nice wedding (not over the top but everyone raved-esp. about the food) and used a few tricks of the trade (from when i was an event and wedding planner) to do it on a very tight budget.

here's a few of the 'tricks'-

no limos, no dj (pre-recorded music), no bar (bought champagne when it was on sale around new years for a fraction of what it normal cost by the case). favors? does anyone keep these? not me or anyone i know-they get tossed in the garbage within hours if not days. our 'favors' were gold foil covered chocolate coins we used as decorations on the tables-guests (esp. kids) loved gobbling them up. centerpeices-rented them from a local place for a fraction of what it would have cost me to make them.

very few 'attendants'-moh, bridesmaid, flower girl, best man, usher, ring carrier. fewer attendants mean fewer attendant gifts (and the ones we gave were appreciated but not excessive),

wedding dress-bought it at one of the twice yearly sales the expensive bridal store had. our wedding was in the spring so i went to the begining of the summer sale where they clear out all the spring dresses (pretty much anyone ordering a dress over the summer is doing it for winter so they want all the existing stock out). paid $299 for a dress that before the sale and when my wedding took place was selling at the same place for over $1500,

location-i called places that did'nt traditionaly hold weddings to see if they just did'nt allow them or if noone had ever asked. the local community theatre venue, the local museum that was closed evenings and had an awsome space, churches that had fellowship halls that were separate buildings from their sanctuaries. ended up with the fellowship hall of a church we did'nt belong to. they might have had an issue with non members having a wedding in their church but they did'nt exclude anyone (within reason) from renting their fellowship hall. great space-had a full industrial kitchen AND they threw in all the banquet tables and chairs free. cost a tenth of what the normal wedding venues charged and people liked it better,

catering-thought of events i had gone to with great food then called the organizers to find out who they used. ended up with a company that never advertised their catering services, they were marketing themselves as a deli (albiet one of the most popular in the area for hot and cold foods). i called them and found out they only catered if people asked for it-i asked and their price was less than half of what the identical catering was being bid to me by anyone else,

photographer-this is where we spent the only substantial money and it still was'nt as much as everyone i knew had spent. we went with the best guy in town but opted out of a package with albums and such. went with a straight hourly rate for him that included so many photos free, with additionals at a pre-set price. videographer we went with the person he reccommended who charged a flat fee for a set number of hours and the finished product,

we paid as we went with stuff. saved what we could so when the big day hit we had the money set aside.


i'll be honest. i was just shy of 30 when i got married. dh and i agreed from day one that our marriage would include children. we also agreed that before we ever tried to have children we wanted to give ourselves 3 years as husband and wife alone. for that reason waiting even a couple of years was'nt an option for us. if i had waited 4 years i would have been 34 when i married and 37 before i started trying to have children. for me personaly-i did'nt want to be trying to have my first child in my late 30's or early 40's.

 

[missypie]

20th anniversary was yesterday.

Our engagement was two and a half months. It didn't occur to me until years later that people probably thought I was pregnant to have such a rushed wedding...but no, baby #1 didn't come around until 18 months later.

 

[wdwfan16]

I would not wait 4 years at that age. We waited just shy of 3 years, but that was because we were both in college.

 

[GoldieSaysMeep]

You asked, so I am answering - yes I think that at your age, a four year engagement is a bit weird. It sounds as if you are more concerned about the "wedding" than the actual marriage.

Also, it sort of seems that you might be afraid deep down inside to get married again, and are purposely dragging things out. With your history, I don't blame you for that.

Okay... I'm going to try to be rational and not be offended by this.

You don't know me or my fiance. We love each other and want to be with each other.

However, we also want a big, fun, unique celebration. I don't even remotely see how wanting that somehow makes us love each other less.

If I just wanted a wedding, I would have enjoyed the gala my parents threw for my first. I did not. Instead, I stayed in the bridal changing room most of the night. I didn't even eat. I also would not have waited 10 years to get engaged again.

Personally, I want to elope and have a fantastic honeymoon but he has a huge family and they want a wedding. Sicne we HAVE to have a wedding, I want it to be a nice wedding. I don't want to be cleaning up the room with my soon to be husband after people leave the hall after the party.

 

[Starfish106]

We got engaged on my birthday (10/6/02) and got married on 10/16/04. DH wanted to finish school and we wanted to save up to pay for it ourselves. It really helped out that we had the 2 years. We got stuff as it went on sale, I became the eBay queen (got programs, place cards, hair pins, veil, crinoline, & broom) and someone had gifted us our DJ & Limo. We didn't do favors (at first got resistance from the old guard but in the end they realized it didn't matter) We had a ball, our guest list was 125 but I think we only paid for 100.

The only two publications that I paid for was a 2 yr subscription to Brides and the Bridal Bargains book (which is the BEST thing out there). I didn't need to spend $30-50 on a wedding binder, my employer had a ton of the plain binders collecting dust in a closet!). There are tons of things out there guaranteed to seperate you from your money if you let them. That night when our head hit the pillow we didn't owe anyone A DIME. The money we received as gifts went towards the we need a house fund and we moved 2 yrs after we got married.

I loved our day and loved planning for it. Next month we are going on our early 5 yr anniversary/honeymoon to where else Disney!

So have a plan, a savings account and automatic deductions and you will be ok

 

[LisaInNc]

1 year

You are saying it's going to take the both of you 4 years to save up 10,000? That is 2,500 a year less than 25.00 a month.

 

[sbsteel]

We're in our thirties, too, and our total engagement to wedding day will be just a hair over eleven months. We're footing the entire bill.

Since we're paying for it, we don't give a flying monkey's butt what people 'expect' - first marriage or not. We're hosting a great event that's within our budget. Even if we eloped, our families would be understanding - especially since they know that we want to start a family in the near future and move from our condo into a house.

At my age, I can't understand wanting a three to four year engagement just to host a party for one night.

 

[lspst8]

I got engaged this January, and we are getting married this Sunday in Las Vegas, so 7 months total.

My sister is getting married in October, and they got engaged in March. 7 months for them too!

Personally, I think it is little weird for people to have long engagements when they aren't still in school. There is no way I would wait for 4 years to get married, but I also don't want a big, expensive reception (hence the going to Vegas).

If you want to elope, I say elope. Especially if you are paying for the wedding yourselves. If it is just your fiance's family who wants the traditional wedding, tough for them. (Completely different if he actually wants his big family there. But if he only want the traditional wedding due to family pressure, unless they are willing to foot the bill, do what the two of you want.)

I just went through this with my fiance's family (they actually threatened to fly to Vegas!) so I know it is no fun.